The bare minimum keeps sinking lower - has anyone else felt similarly, and successfully found something better elsewhere in the PS?
Sorry if this is negative - I am really struggling lately.
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What I thought was the bare minimum of effort at work in the roles around me is consistently sinking lower and lower.
I work in IT. I started years ago with much enthusiasm, with the perspective that I can do things, as I have other places I’ve worked. Nothing crazy, just that I would *do a thing*, check off a task, complete something. Do something that will help someone. I deeply care about the mandate of what I’m doing.
Earlier on, I got tasked with solving a business problem and coming up with a solution. I did research and put together a proposal. Without the foundations to move forward fully, I also put together the pre-requisites to implementation. Without being prompted, I even identified who in the org could help me work on them, according to function. Assignment dropped. No feedback. No reason, no follow up. No work.
I’ve moved a couple times, and this pattern has repeated in different forms. The gaps still exist. I’ve been promoted and I do well in my performance assessments, so I know it’s not about my capacity. It’s definitely not about my willingness. I do professional development, and sometimes on my own dime.
Lately I participate in department wide IT projects, and It seems like the others around me have found every way they can think of to reduce their accountability and workload, and put it on our clients. Generating simple AI deliverables, not quality checking. Clients ask questions and get sent to a FAQ page that doesn’t answer the question. Usability is not a top concern.
We don’t have basic IT governance - colleagues and teams fight over what systems should be doing. But since there’s no requirements, no common language, and no standards, it’s just a fight over vision with circular arguments, peppered with a lack of user adoption.
We are supposed to have professional expertise in what we’re doing, but our clients often demonstrate a higher capacity to do the work, while caring more than most people in my function.
If TBS or SSC don’t require or incite us to do something, it seems we don’t do it.
We’re continually asked by our leadership to identify the low hanging fruit, at the expense of forever avoiding the hard and foundational work. But we’re at the point now where there is no fruit - we’ve neglected the tree for a decade. How can we possibly expect fruit?!
Can anyone else relate, and if so, how do you stay motivated and do your job? I wonder if this is just a really incompetent area of IT that I find myself in, or if some aspects of this are standard across the board in the PS.
Has anyone ever experienced this, but then moved to another area or another dept where it got better? Thank you!